Page 3373 - Week 09 - Thursday, 22 August 2019
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another of his withering attacks on this Labor-Greens government. Mr Stanhope, a former Labor leader, quoted a local Aboriginal leader who recently said these words: “The Chief Minister needs to understand”— (Time expired.)
MS LE COUTEUR (Murrumbidgee) (3.13): The really positive thing about this current debate is that all three parties are unanimously agreeing that what we want is a good bus service. I am always trying to find the positive side and that is the positive side of this one. I agree with Mr Parton 100 per cent about the importance of a well-connected and practical bus network for Canberra’s outer suburban areas. Well, I do not 100 per cent agree with him; I would take out the words “outer suburban areas”. I think we all deserve decent public transport, a decent bus service—even people who live in inner areas.
As part of the estimates process, I asked a question on notice about the changed bus service. I asked for lots of figures from June this year compared to June the year before in terms of patronage and the number of services. The figures just came as raw figures, but today we actually got it together to analyse them a bit more—and I was shocked. We have all been told that journeys have gone up overall. That is true, but once you look at it by district you will find Canberra central went up by 12 per cent. Yes, that is good. It is not just the light rail, I can tell you, because I have a number of people who live in Canberra central who work in my office; they got more buses as well as the light rail. So, yes, we would expect that figure to go up.
Next is the one that has shocked me the most. For Woden Valley on a weekday all passengers are down by five per cent. That is one of the reasons I said that this is not an outer suburban problem. Woden is not outer suburban, and, even if it was, that is irrelevant. All of Canberra deserves a decent bus service. Woden was down five per cent and Belconnen was down two per cent. Tuggeranong, as Mr Parton would know from his doorknocking on the streets, was down five per cent. However, Molonglo was up by 29 per cent. If you put another few thousand people somewhere, you have got to hope that some of them catch the bus, and I think that is what is going on there.
The numbers in Gungahlin were up 27 per cent. If the light rail could not make a difference in Gungahlin, I do not know what could. Weston Creek numbers were up nine per cent. No, Mr Parton, that is for real; Weston Creek was the one big winner out of the bus services. They now have a 15-minute service between Cooleman Court and Woden. Yes, there have been a few winners and Weston Creek is one of them. In Majura, much to my surprise, they were up 15 per cent, but there are not many of them anyway.
If you look at the weekend figures, you will find that everywhere the weekend numbers have gone up—apart from Sunday concession passengers from Majura. I must admit that I really do not understand the bus usage of Majura, so I will not make more comments on that. Clearly, the weekend services have been big successes. Through all of Canberra, they are up 27 per cent on Saturday and 39 per cent on Sunday, and that is really good. I got somewhat confused and then enthusiastic, but then I looked at the other figures that I got from this question on notice, the increased number of services, and this is where you realise that the government has really got a problem. We have 19 per cent more services on weekdays, but we have only a seven
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